


First Burn

by ZenyZootSuit



Series: The Rubble and Our Sins [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Discussion of Abortion, M/M, Missing Scene, Movie: Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Movie: Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Movie: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Past Mpreg, Past Relationship(s), Past Underage, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:15:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23089984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZenyZootSuit/pseuds/ZenyZootSuit
Summary: Of course Poe knew who he was. How could he not, after everything that had happened between them?
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Poe Dameron/Finn
Series: The Rubble and Our Sins [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1616809
Comments: 5
Kudos: 26





	First Burn

**Author's Note:**

> Goddamnit Bucky stop using song lyrics in your titles and fic jeez...
> 
> Poe's POV of the events in Over My Dead Body. I'd read that one first if you don't want to be scratching your head for this one

*******

Of course Poe knew who he was. How could he not, after everything that had happened between them?

*******

He knew he had made a mistake the second he fired the shot.

He did it out of anger, out of pain. It’s not like the shot would have made a difference, the old man was already dead. The blasted thing stopped in mid air and stayed there as the Stormtroopers dragged him from his hiding spot and up to meet the masked figure with the red lightsaber.

The Stormtroopers kicked him to his knees and the Sith crouched down in front of him. Poe looked at the other man as the blood in his veins turned to ice.

“So who talks first? You talk first? I talk first?”

The Sith ignored him and continued to stare for a moment longer before speaking.

“The old man gave it to you.”

Even after nearly two decades, the man who used to be Ben Solo could still read him like a book.

Unbidden and unwanted, a much different and happier memory invaded his thoughts. The memory of how he met Ben Solo.

*

_New Year’s Eve, some Resistance base, Hanger 9, such a very long time ago. Poe had broken away from his group of flight school hopefuls for a breather and had ended up sitting under an X-Wing next to a tall, dark boy he had never seen before. The boy was dressed like one of them, and had a beer in his hand._

_Poe had always been a sucker for the tall, dark types. Even more so then, before that same boy had taught him sense._

_Poe, drunk off his ass, had apparently done nothing but stare at the boy with what Ben would later call “heart eyes” while Ben sipped at his drink, waiting for him to say something._

_“So who talks first?” Ben had eventually said with a light smirk. “Do you talk first or do I?”_

_Poe had somewhat recovered himself then, laughing nervously._

_“I’ve never seen you around here before.”_

_“That’s because I’ve never been around here before.”_

_Poe grinned. “Well then, welcome. I’m Poe Dameron.” He held out his hand. The boy shook it with a firm grip._

_“Ben.”_

_“You a flight student then?”_

_Ben regarded him careful and took a sip of his beer before answering. “One day, hopefully. You?”_

_Poe’s grin had been splitting his face by then. “One day. Hopefully. How many years you got left?”_

_Ben shrugged. “When you find out, you tell me. I haven’t really taken a traditional path.”_

_“Gotchya.” Poe scooted closer as Ben shifted where he was leaning against the landing gear to face him more fully. “I got one year left. Just turned seventeen.”_

_Ben nodded. “Nice. So I guess I got two plus years minimum. Just turned sixteen myself.”_

_(How easily the lies and half truths had rolled off his tongue even then.)//_

_“Congratulations on your first drink then.”_

_“Haha, sure. ‘First’.” Ben replied with a grin and a raised eyebrow as he leaned forward to regard Poe more closely, reaching up a hand and brushing a thumb over Poe’s cheek. “You look like you could use some air.”_

(Poe could remember the spike of heat he had felt in his gut)

_“I could. Wanna come with me?”_

_“I would.”_

_Outside of Hanger 9 behind the shipping containers, Poe had kissed Ben Solo for the first time. Or rather, Ben Solo had kissed him. Had pushed him up against the metal of the container with such surety, his hands on Poe’s arms, over his chest and in his hair, kissing the breath out of him as they ground against each other._

*

Poe remembered thinking the other boy had been oddly unpracticed for someone as beautiful as him, for someone who moved with such confidence and seemed to know exactly what he wanted, but Poe had resolved not to judge. Everyone had to start somewhere (a fatal error in judgement).

To this day, Poe wondered how he could have fallen for Ben’s scheme. He should have seen through it, he should have...

In the end though, he argued to himself, how was he, a mere mortal, supposed to contend against a Force user like Ben Solo who knew how and why he was lying, and what he had to do to keep Poe perfectly in the dark.

He had succeeded in it for an entire year.

The fact that the other boy had turned out to have a penchant for the Dark Side and an unsettling ability to use Force-suggestion should have comforted Poe. It did not.

He forced it all from his mind, hopefully before the Sith could see it.

“It’s just very hard to understand you with all the...” He motioned to his face as the Sith ordered him searched and detained. His chest ached as they dragged him onto the ship. 

*******

The chair they strapped him to looked like a torture device in and of itself. It felt like one too, stretching his limbs out just this side of too far, the metal digging uncomfortably into his back.

The Stormtroopers who interrogated him first shouted, hit, threatened, and shocked him. It was, well, torture but he preferred it to the alternative. The alternative, however, was inevitable and he knew it more and more each time he recited his name, rank, and serial number.

He had been resting his eyes when the door opened.

“I had no idea we had the best pilot in the Resistance on board.” Even with that stupid modulator, it still fucking sounded like him. Deeper and robotic, but him nonetheless. “Comfortable?”

“Not really,” Poe answered tiredly.

A pause.

“I’m impressed,” the Sith drawled. “No one has been able to get out of you what you did with the map.”

“Might wanna rethink your technique.”

A soft huff. “Indeed.” And with that, the Sith lifted his hands to the underside of his helmet. It released with a soft hiss as he pulled it from his head. “It’s been a long time, Poe.”

Poe’s heart clenched painfully. He had hoped this monster didn’t look like him, but no. No, he still had the same curly black hair, the same dark eyes (but they weren’t the same, were they? Ben’s eyes had been so warm, but this monster’s eyes were ice cold. At least they weren’t yellow), the same soft lines of his completely unmarred face. He had hoped that there would be nothing to connect this man to the boy Poe had once very nearly loved, but there was everything, there was—

He wasn’t quick enough to silence the thought.

“What was that?” the man who used to be Ben Solo asked with a disbelieving smirk. “Very nearly loved, hmm?” He set his helmet down and strolled closer. “I don’t know if I believe that, considering you threw me away like trash.”

Poe swallowed around the lump in his throat. “I did what I did because you’re a dirty liar and a fucking Sith.”

“Well, you’re not wrong,” he replied with a light laugh.

“You don’t seem too broken up about it anyway,” Poe said, not breaking eye contact.

Kylo Ren shrugged, face amused and entirely unaffected. “It was nearly twenty years ago. A lot has happened between now and then.”

“You don’t need to tell me twice,” Poe spat. “What happened to you? You had the perfect life, and you threw it all away. For what?”

Kylo Ren really did laugh then, moving to stand between Poe’s legs and lean over him with both hands rested on the pilot’s wrists. Poe tried very hard not to think of the other man’s warm skin on his.

“And what would you know?” he murmured in Poe’s ear, voice steady and even. “Not once did you ever bother to ask.”

It must have been the stress, the pain, that made Poe’s head spin, made his voice crack. It must have been. “Would you have told the truth if I had?”

Kylo Ren pulled back just a bit, so their faces were mere centimeters apart. “I did once. You didn’t listen.”

“That’s because I didn’t believe you were telling the truth.”

“Case in point.”

Oddly enough, Kylo Ren was smiling as he brought one hand up to rest on Poe’s cheek and he looked so much like Ben Solo that Poe shivered.

“I’ll tell you a truth now, then. I’ve missed you.”

Poe turned his head to the side. Kylo let him, his other hand coming up to twine gently in Poe’s hair as he pressed the length of his body to Poe’s. The Sith was fucking with him and he knew it. He didn’t need to look any farther than Kylo Ren’s cold brown eyes that, now that he was close enough to see, glinted with just a touch of yellow to find his proof. That didn’t make it hurt any less.

His breath brushed over Poe’s cheek as he murmured, “And I’ll tell you another. Maybe I very nearly loved you, too.”

Poe turned back to look him dead in the face. “I don’t believe Sith are capable of love.”

“I wasn’t a Sith then.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Believe what you want.”

It was Poe’s turn to smirk. “So you think you can talk your way into my arms and make me spill all my secrets to you? You did that already before. I’m wise to it now.”

Kylo’s thumb stroked gently over his cheek bone as he said, “Darling, I’m already there,” and then Kylo Ren’s mouth was on his.

 _Stars_ , maybe the Sith was using a bit of Force-suggestion or maybe Poe had missed him too. Missed this. Missed the way he kissed. Missed the way he always seemed to know exactly what he wanted and what Poe wanted as well.

Kylo broke the kiss to whisper against his lips. “Tell me where the map is.”

“I’m not gonna do that.” Poe hated how strained his voice was.

“Yes you will” Kylo Ren kissed him again. “One way or another.”

For an undetermined amount of time after that, the only sound in the room was the sound of their lips meeting again and again and Poe hated every second of it (really, he did, no matter how much he leaned after Kylo’s lips when the man would move back just a tad to toy with him).

Images —memories— kept popping up in his head. Images from that first time behind the shipping container, of Ben Solo kissing him senseless before dropping to his knees and blowing him until his legs shook (damn it, the Sith had seen it in Poe’s head earlier). The memory of fucking in Poe’s tiny room at the flight school after Poe had bribed his roommate to leave for the day. Ben astride his hips, hands pinning Poe’s wrists to the bed as he fixed Poe with a brilliant smile.

The Sith was definitely reading his mind, as he immediately made every adjustment that even began to flicker through Poe’s head and Kylo was fucking with him, _this was still torture_ , but Poe didn’t fight it because as long as the Sith was busy kissing him, he wasn’t getting his hands on the map.

As if on cue, Kylo Ren pulled back and rested his forehead against Poe’s. “I will get it from you,” he stated matter-of-factly. “I just thought I’d offer you the easy way before we do it the hard way.”

“Do whatever you want, but I won’t give it to you. Not willingly.”

The Sith sighed heavily, pulling away completely and putting his helmet back on.

“As you wish,” the robotic voice said as he put his gloves back on. “I’m going to enjoy this. And I was telling the truth, you know. I did very nearly love you. And you broke my heart.”

“You broke mine first.”

It took Kylo Ren under a minute to get the information from him.

*******

It was a long time before he made it back to the Resistance base. When he finally did, it was with a heavy heart.

He hadn’t expected to make it out at all, but then there had been...Finn. There had been Finn, the Stormtrooper who had risked his life to help him. Who had...ultimately given his life. He had needed a pilot sure, but...

Poe’s chest ached and he pressed a fist to his mouth, unable to bear the thought of the man coming so close to freedom, getting a taste of it, only to…to…

He jumped when the door opened and quickly rose to his feet to salute as General Organa entered the room.

“At ease, Commander,” she said gently. “Sit down. You’ve been through a lot.”

Poe obeyed without a fuss. Without saying anything at all, in fact. It was uncharacteristic, he knew, and a testament to how rattled he was.

The General took her seat as well and leaned back in her chair. “I’m not at all pleased to see you out of the medical wing so soon.”

Poe swallowed around his dry throat, suddenly made aware of the stitches in his hairline and the bruises and burns on his body.

“I’m fine, General.”

“You were involved in a blaster battle and taken captive by the First Order only to escape and promptly go down in a fiery crash.”

Poe shrugged and looked down at his clasped hands.

“They told me you wouldn’t give a statement, which is why I brought you in here.”

Oh he had done more than simply refuse. He had made a right fool of himself by freaking the fuck out to the point where they had to sedate him.

When he gave no response, Leia sighed heavily. “Poe, everybody talks. If you talked, no one will blame you, it’s a miracle you made it back to us at all.”

Poe shut his eyes against a fresh wash of pain. A miracle? Probably. All in the form of a man named Finn.

He opened his eyes at the sound of something scraping across the desk. It turned out to be a box of tissues, at which point Poe noticed he had been crying.

“Forgive me, General...” he said, hurriedly scrubbing the tears from his face with the back of his hand.

“Tell me what happened, Poe.”

The pilot nodded slowly.

“Start from the beginning. Did you ever find the map?”

Poe swallowed hard. “Yes.”

Leia nodded along with him. “Okay,” she said, giving him an encouraging look.

Poe went on, voice sounding rusty. “I got it from the old man, but the village was attacked and my ship engines shot out before I could escape. The old man refused to come with me.” Part of Poe hoped Leia was in for the long haul, because now that he had started, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop. “They brought in a company of Stormtroopers. I tried to flee with the map but they shot out my ship’s engine. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get away, so I put the map in my droid, BB-8, and engaged in the conflict to give him time to get the map away from there. The villagers were subdued and...”

Leia gave him a moment to collect his thoughts, but when he spoke no further she prompted, “Go on.”

“And Kylo Ren joined the fight.”

Leia sighed and rubbed her eyes.

“Are you...” Poe stopped a moment before he started again. “Are you aware of who Kylo Ren is?”

“Yes, Commander,” the General said without looking up. “I am fully aware that the Sith Kylo Ren used to be my son, Ben.”

Poe stayed silent for a long moment, suddenly wishing he’d stayed in the medical wing. Leia straightened up again, face expressionless, and bid him continue.

He skimmed over the rest of the story, saying only of the interrogation that when no one else could get the location of the map out of him, Kylo Ren came in and got it in less than a minute.

“So they know it’s in the droid?”

“That’s correct.”

Leia leaned back in her chair. “The First Order will be all over Jakku by now. We will have to hope that droid of yours is good at hiding. Or else that it falls into a sand pit.”

Poe flinched, but understood the sentiment, which Leia then voiced.

“Better my brother be lost forever than found by them.”

Leia stood and Poe rose with her, standing at attention, falling back on the protocol he so hated to keep himself from falling apart.

Just before she reached the door, Leia paused and turned back to him. “You and my son...you were...friends, weren’t you?”

_He could remember Ben’s smile, the way he kissed him, he could remember the first time they slept together, and the last. How he had left Ben in that room after he ended things, then gone back to his own and sobbed for hours. How he hadn’t had a long term relationship since, and how he had rebelled briefly after it all, unable to handle it. How it had taken him years to get over it, hindered by Ben’s fall, wondering if he could have stopped it, or if he were the cause of it. How Kylo Ren kissed just like Ben always had—_

“Yes, General,” he replied, staring at nothing as he bit clean through the inside of his cheek.

Ever since the interrogation, he had been having trouble keeping the memories at bay. As if Kylo Ren had opened a floodgate long shut somewhere in his mind. He hadn’t thought about this shit in years.

Leia nodded. “I will see that the Stormtrooper who helped you escape is honored and remembered. Later, I want you to sit down with engineering and strategy and tell them every detail you remember from every ship you were on, but for now, get your ass back to the medical wing before you pass out on my floor.”

“Yes, General,” Poe said with a quick smile. Leia winked at him and left Poe to his thoughts.

*******

The next days were a whirlwind.

Finn was alive, aided by a Force-sensitive girl and Han-fucking-Solo. BB-8 was safe and so was the map to Luke Skywalker.

Their base was bombed out and the Hosnian system was destroyed, so they blew up a planet-killing planet and so many people on both sides died, including Han Solo.

Their base was bombed again and they fled. They took out a Dreadnought and lost most of their fleet and it was _his_ fault and he deserved the demotion, something that would only register with him once they were safely hidden away on Endor.

But before that Poe fucked everything up further and his meddling whittled the Resistance down to so few people they could all fit on the Millennium Falcon after the battle of Crait. But not before Poe set his eyes again on Kylo Ren.

He put his foot through the floor of the junk speeder and one of his guns fell off as he flew, but he steeled himself and shouted his commands, looking straight at the ion canon and the ship that hovered just behind it.

 _Shoot me down, you bastard_ , he thought as his companions fell around him, knowing the Sith could hear him. _You gave me a truth, you want one too? Well here it is. I can’t believe I ever loved a monster like you. C’mon, do it. Shoot me down._ _Do it!_

Almost everyone else fell, but he didn’t.

He awoke on Endor in a cold sweat, the scent of burning flesh in his nose and a bitten-off scream in his throat. It was still early. The sun was just barely beginning to peak through the trees, but Poe doubted he would get any more sleep.

Finn always complained he was grumpy because he never slept.

“You need a nap!” the man had shouted at him the day before after Poe had said something particularly nasty. “If I see you up before 7am tomorrow I will beat your ass, you understand me?”

Poe had grumbled something about there being too much work to do, but the reality of it was that survivor’s guilt kept him awake. And just plain old guilt that his hardheadedness had killed so many people.

Poe looked over at the man sleeping next to him, smiling thinly. Their relationship was still in its early stages. Poe had only kissed him a few months ago, after Finn woke up, before all the shit had settled in his head.

He remembered Finn’s fumbling surprise and Rey’s cheers of “I CALLED IT, CHEWIE, I CALLED IT! YOU OWE ME TEN CREDITS!” fondly. Now, he wished he could be a better partner, but his soul just ached.

He rose quietly so as not to disturb his partner and left to begin preparations for their upcoming mission.

Sunlight was barely visible through the thick canopy under which they had built their base. It was dead silent. Perhaps it should have been eerie, but Poe only found it peaceful.

_One foot in front of the other. Step by step. One day at a time. Just keep working._

When he was working, he didn’t have to think. Didn’t have to think about all the deaths he was responsible for, how he should have been the one who died for his own stupidity instead of the men who had trusted him to make the right call—

He had just been loading up some supplies when he head soft sniffs coming from just beyond the treeline at the far end of the launchpad. Carefully setting down the crate he had been carrying, he followed the sounds.

There, about a hundred feet back, sat General Leia on a fallen log, head in her hands as she wept quietly.

Poe debated briefly whether or not he should say anything, wondering if it was his place, but his indecision was short lived. Of course it was his place. Leia had been his only family for decades.

He cleared his throat softly and Leia froze in place.

“Everything alright, General?”

The General wiped her eyes and turned to face him, smiling thinly.

“Would you believe me if I said yes?”

Poe returned her half smile.

Leia patted the log next to her. “Come sit.”

Poe did.

“So much has changed since I was last here. So many people who were here with me then are now gone…and you don’t have to tell me that that’s how life works. You and I both know that well enough.”

Poe nodded slowly, chest tightening to the point of pain as the nightmares from earlier returned with a vengeance. _Your fault they had to rebuild the Resistance from scratch, your fault the First Order gained so much ground, your fault yourfaultyour—_

“Forgive me,” he blurted before he could stop himself. “I fucked up, it’s all my fault, I should have—“

“Enough, Poe.”

Poe’s mouth snapped shut as the General regarded him sadly.

“I won’t insult you with useless platitudes. You made the wrong choices, but you did so for the right reasons. People die in war, there’s no getting around that.”

Poe struggled to find words. “It’s still my fault, General,” he finally stuttered.

“Yes,” Leia said simply. “It is. And it’s my fault that Alderaan was blown to bits, did you know that? Grand Moff Tarkin blew it up because I wouldn’t give him the information he wanted. But indulging in survivor’s guilt does nothing to help anyone still alive, and nothing can be done for the dead.”

Poe had no words. He just ached.

Leia turned to look out over the forest. “But...that’s not why I’m out here, not entirely. I was...” she trailed off for a brief moment before continuing. “I was thinking about my son. My Ben.”

Poe’s breath froze in his throat.

Leia looked down at her hands. “I failed him Poe. Fundamentally, I failed him.”

“You didn’t fail him, Leia,” Poe said firmly, shaken out of his stupor. He placed a hand on her wrist. “You gave him the world and he threw it away.”

Leia turned to Poe, who was quite surprised to see the cold, dull look on her face. “I didn’t give him shit.”

Poe blinked, unsure of how to respond. Leia continued before he had the chance to.

“All I gave him was instability. Me, so preoccupied with the Senate. His father, a complete and utter flake by nature—“ Poe bit back a snort at that. “—Luke was the only constant in his life, but even he made some terrible choices. And then…” she trailed off briefly, before steeling herself. “And then he got sick. Sick in his heart, in his soul. And I drove him away to his Jedi School and Ben went with him. I sent my son away with him because I let people convince me that he had too much of his grandfather in him. In my anxiety to keep him from the Dark Side, I drove him to it.”

“I very much doubt that.”

“You weren’t there, Poe, you don’t know.”

Poe swallowed hard and chose his next words carefully. “Maybe not, but you didn’t make him kill those kids.”

“No,” Leia conceded, a sad smile on her face. “No, I didn’t, but I pushed him there. Or let him fall there.”

“So he got sent away as a kid,” Poe said darkly. “So did I, and I’m still on the side of the angels.”

He watched as Leia stared off into middle distance. “Remember I said Luke was sick in his soul? He started that school after I sent him away, but not long after he was too sick to keep it up. He couldn’t even take care of himself, let alone…let alone anyone else. So you know who picked up the slack?”

A chill ran down Poe’s spine.

“My son. At the age of eleven my son became the unofficial acting head of the Jedi School. From the age of eleven until he was thirteen he had twelve children, Luke’s infant daughter, and his sick uncle under his care.”

Pricklings of nausea churned in Poe’s gut as he struggled to sort through that information, not even ready to deal with the knowledge that Luke Skywalker had a _kid_.

 _I told you a truth once_ , the memory of Kylo Ren’s voice rang in his head over all the other white noise. _You didn’t listen._

 _You’re a child!_ eighteen-year-old Poe screamed.

 _On paper, maybe, but I was more mature at eleven than you are now_! Ben had screamed back.

“At fourteen he thought he was so old,” Leia murmured, seemingly to no one in particular. “After we found out what was going on and Luke went to the hospital, I tried to give him is childhood back. Send him back to school, take the future of the Jedi off his back, take care of the kids myself…” she chuckled humorlessly. “He wouldn’t let me. He was convinced he could do a better job. The sad part was, he was right.”

Poe clasped his hands, so they wouldn’t shake. “If you’ll forgive my language, General, shit happens. People got sick, shit got messed up. If he thought he could take such good care of those kids, why did he turn around and kill them?”

Leia didn’t seem to have heard him. “If I’d have only supported him better, if I’d have only been there for him, maybe he…”

When a minute passed and she hadn’t continued, he prompted her.

“Maybe he’d have…what?”

“Maybe he wouldn’t have had that abortion.”

And the world dropped out from under Poe’s feet. “What?” he breathed.

Leia nodded slowly. “That’s what did it. The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, though in reality it was more like a boulder….”

She laughed softly, humorlessly. “When he was fourteen, he got pregnant. The only person he told was Luke, and only because he needed a guardian to sign the permission papers. Luke signed them. Ben thought he was so old, but he was _so young_ … too young to make a decision like that on his own. But Luke was adamant that he had made sure Ben knew all his options and that if he could make decisions for fourteen people, then he could make a decision about his own body. His body, his choice, that’s what Luke said…”

Poe barely heard a word of it, stunned into silence and suddenly freezing cold.

“Ben always said he didn’t regret his decision, but after he came back from that appointment, he was never the same.”

It was getting very, very difficult to breathe. “How…how old did you say he was?”

Leia frowned. “He was fourteen—“

Poe was on his feet and running anywhere else but there before he even realized what he was doing. He ran and he ran until his lungs burned and he fell to his knees, emptying the contents of his stomach into the dirt.

“No…” he whispered. “No no no…”

_My fault, it’s my fault, it’s all my fault—_

And then he was sobbing in earnest. He covered his face with his hands in a desperate attempt to get control of himself, to no avail.

_Pregnant? A child… Oh Ben…_

_What have I done? What have I done..._

A hand on his back made him startle hard.

“Shhh, Poe,” Leia’s voice soothed. How she had followed him so quickly, he had no idea. Maybe he had been sitting there longer than he thought. “Poe, look at me.”

It took every ounce of Poe’s courage to lift his head. Where he expected to find fury, he only found sympathy.

“You were the other father, weren’t you?” she asked gently.

Poe thought about lying. Briefly, he did. But he couldn’t. “Yes,” he barely got out. “Yes, I must have been.”

Leia nodded slowly, brushing some of the hair out of Poe’s eyes.

“I didn’t know he was…I didn’t know, I swear I didn’t,” Poe rambled, voice shaking. “If I had I would have never broken things off with him. I only did because he lied to me, he lied about his age, he told me he was older and I believed him and I took advantage of him and I—“

Leia cut him off. “Breathe, Poe, before you pass out.” As he struggled to keep from hyperventilating, Leia rubbed his back gently.

Finally able to draw a clear breath, Poe managed to say, “You must hate me. You have every right to.”

Leia simply shook her head. “No, I don’t hate you, Poe. I am…quite honestly relieved.”

Poe stared. “What?”

Leia offered him a small smile and sat beside him on the ground. “When my son refused to tell me who the other father was, I…I feared many terrible things. You have assuaged those fears.”

Poe shook his head, but Leia spoke again before he could.

“Did you love my son, Poe?”

Poe stared at her, heart torn wide open as he remembered Ben’s smile, his sense of humor, how he’d held Poe as the other boy panicked over a failed flight test, once outside the hangar how he’d picked a wildflower and put it behind Poe’s ear, giving him the most sincere smile as he told him he’d rather be there with him than anywhere else in the galaxy—

“Yes,” Poe whispered before he knew he had. “I did. I used to…I used to dream of…ending up with him. Forever.”

He hadn’t thought about that in years, how just before he found out about Ben’s deception, he had laid awake in bed at night dreaming about asking Ben to marry him after he was done with flight school, to hell with what Han Solo thought. He had dreamt of getting married in the springtime, when the wildflowers Ben so loved grew. He had had it all planned out, and then completely by chance he had been in the records office and seen Ben’s file open on a desk.

“It broke my heart to end things with him, but…and he tried to _tell_ me, to explain everything but I didn’t listen. I didn’t believe him…”

Leia hugged him tightly and didn’t let him go.

Finn met them when they got back to base. Blessedly, it was still early enough that no one else was awake to see them.

“Poe! Where did you go, what—“ He took in Poe’s drawn face. “What happened?”

“Poe’s had a bit of a shock,” Leia supplied. “Do me a favor and put him to bed for a few hours. Give him time to get his head on straight.”

“I’m not a child,” Poe hissed.

Finn made a face. “Then maybe you should stop acting like one.”

Poe glared at him dully. Finn sighed and held out his hand.

Despite the horrible ache in his chest, Poe smiled softly at the sight of his partner standing there, waiting for him. He took the proffered hand.

Finn led him back to their room and sat him down on the bed.

Poe stared at his hands as Finn moved about the room. He looked up when a drink appeared in front of his face.

“A bit early isn’t it?” he croaked.

“You look like you need it.”

Poe did, so he took it and downed the whole thing in one long swallow. Shitty Outter-Rim whiskey. He didn’t care.

Poe sat down on the bed next to him, letting their thighs touch.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Finn asked carefully.

Poe shivered, pressing his forehead against the glass.

“I’m a monster…” he whispered, barely even realizing he had spoken.

Finn rubbed his back gently. “Why are you a monster?”

Poe shook his head.

Finn gave him a minute to gather his thoughts, but when he didn’t speak again continued, “If you don’t want to talk about it right now, it’s okay. But I don’t believe for a second that you’re a monster.”

Poe scoffed. “Well you don’t know the half of it, now do you?”

“So tell me and let me make that judgement for myself.”

Poe laughed miserably. “Stars, Finn, I…” he trailed off.

Finn shifted closer and wrapped his arm more securely around Poe. “Take your time.”

Poe shut his eyes and leaned into the contact for a moment. _Just a moment longer, before he breaks up with me._

He took a deep breath and began. “Kylo Ren…used to be called Ben Solo, many years ago. When I was a lot younger, back in flight school, I met him. He’d be around base sometimes, as the General’s kid. I…I was in love with him.”

The hand on his back paused paused briefly before it continued its soothing motion.

“And I think he was with me. But he lied to me about his age. He told me he was sixteen to my seventeen. He was tall and strong from Jedi training and carried himself so well that I believed him. He was actually fourteen.” Poe smiled bitterly. “When I found out I broke things off with him. What I didn’t know was that…”

He broke off and pinched the bridge of his nose before continuing. “What I didn’t know was that he was pregnant. Male Force users can do that, apparently. He was fourteen, pregnant, and his boyfriend broke things off with him. He got an abortion. Less than a year later he fell.”

“Poe I’m so sorry—“

Poe cut him off. “Sorry? Why are you sorry? You have no reason to be, I did a terrible thing and he fell _because of me_ —“

“Stop it.” Finn grabbed Poe by the jaw, forcing him to look at him. “That…is a tragedy. And I’m sorry for young Ben Solo that he had to go through that, and for you for finding out now, much too late to change anything, but…” Finn sighed. “But I’ve heard what he did at the Jedi School. And I’ve seen firsthand what he’s done for the First Order. Nothing makes you like that, you _choose_ to be like that. Maybe all that shit made him fall, but nothing forces you to turn into a cold-blooded murderer.”

Poe shook his head slowly. He blinked, and a single tear rolled down his cheek.

Finn dragged him into a hug, one arm securely around Poe’s back, his other hand gently cradling the back of his head.

“I’m so sorry for your loss, Poe…”

Poe gripped the back of his partner’s shirt tightly as he buried his face in Finn’s neck.

“I don’t deserve you,” he whispered wetly. “You deserve so much better than me…”

Finn pulled back and kissed him soundly. “Shut up, Poe.”

Poe fell asleep to the feeling of Finn’s fingers in his hair, his warm weight against his back.

*******

General Hux looked terrible.

That was the first thing Poe noticed as he stood on the Supreme Leader’s ship. Kylo Ren’s ship. As it turned out, the disgraced General was also the Resistance’s mystery informant. That much was obvious considering they busted in just in time to see him shoot two of the guards in the head. One of the final two guards on the door attacked while the other one ran.

Poe took care of the one with a quick blast under the chin. He spun around in time to see the General scoop up a rifle from a fallen guard and drop to one knee in the doorway. Cocking and bracing the rifle expertly against his shoulder, he shot the fleeing guard like a sniper: cleanly in the back of the head. The man was dead before he hit the floor.

“Where’d you learn how to shoot?” Poe asked, stunned and vaguely impressed.

The haggard General tossed the rifle to Finn and looked up at Poe, unamused. “While it may be true that my current position in this organization is purely decorative, I was at one point a real soldier.”

Hux told them whatever they wanted to know as he led them back to the main hangar.

“Shoot me in the shoulder before you go if you ever want more intelligence,” he said as they arrived at the hangar bay.

“Shoot you in the shoulder?” Poe repeated with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes,” the General said tonelessly with a wry smile. “If you don’t, my superiors will shoot me in the head when they find me, and then I won’t be of any use to you at all.”

Poe shot him in the knee, just in case he was lying. Hux went down like a lead balloon hissing out a curse in a language that was decidedly not Basic.

“Was that my _fucking_ shoulder—“

“Why are you helping us? Why help the Resistance?”

The General looked up at him from under his thin red hair, black circles under his eyes standing out against sickly white skin. He licked his cracked lips as he sneered. “I don’t care who wins. I just want Kylo Ren to _lose_.”

Poe remembered seeing a recap of the General’s speech on Starkiller. He saw him again not long after, in a hologram as the Resistance fled their base on Takodana. He wondered briefly how this man had gone from the fearsome General of the First Order to…whatever shadow of the man he once was lying on the floor now.

“Get the fuck out of here before it turns out you shattered my kneecap for nothing,” Hux hissed, so Poe left him there.

He was trotting towards their parked ship when suddenly a tall black figure stood right in front of him.

Kylo Ren stood right in front of him. He skidded to a halt, adrenaline flooding his veins as he prepared himself for the fight of his life.

_I thought I sensed another intruder on my ship._

Another, shit, Rey—

Wait. That voice had come from inside his head.

“Poe!” Finn yelled. “What are you waiting for, come on!”

Force projection. He wasn’t really here.

_No I’m not, but I will make sure your ship goes careening into the atmosphere of Kijimi if you even try to flee._

Poe flinched, body preparing to make a break for it anyway, to hell with the odds Han Solo style, but he was frozen in place, staring at the face of his first love.

Kylo Ren looked so much like Ben Solo.

 _Ben Solo…_ a voice in the back of Poe’s mind whispered. _Ben Solo, who loved you and who you loved._ _Ben Solo, who had at one point been pregnant with your child, who you subsequently abandoned—_

Poe hadn’t meant to think it, but the Sith heard it nonetheless. His eyes widened as a choked sound escaped him, like he had been punched in the gut. Ren stared at him, eyes wide.

_How did you know that? Who told you that—_

“So it really is true…” Somewhere, he heard Finn screaming for him to get on the ship, what the hell was he doing— “Forgive me, Ben. I didn’t know. I never would have left you if I had, I’m so sorry…”

Kylo Ren’s breath came hard and fast as he stared at Poe, expression pained.

 _…It doesn’t matter_ , the Sith finally said. _By the time you broke up with me I had already gotten rid of it. So you can forget that ill conceived notion tucked away in the back of your brain that you’re somehow responsible for my fall because you left me pregnant and alone or some shit, don’t try to hide it from me, I can see it all._

The Sith’s voice was mocking in his head, but Poe could hear the pain in it nevertheless.

_I didn’t tell you because it didn’t concern you. It was my body, and I made a choice about it._

“But you regret it.”

 _No, I don’t_ , the man sneered. _Given the circumstances, I don’t._

“But you regret the circumstances.”

The Sith said nothing in reply and Poe went on to whisper, “I regret the circumstances.”

Kylo Ren blinked, and a single tear rand down his cheek as he stared at Poe for a drawn out moment. In the end, he appeared to make a decision.

 _I will be back on my ship in two minutes_ , Poe heard Kylo Ren’s voice in his head say. _If I find you on my ship, I will kill you. Just this once, Poe Dameron, see that I don’t find you on it._

And he was gone, and Finn was dragging him bodily onto their ship and they were off and Finn was screaming at him and shaking him, and Poe—

“He let us go…” he heard Rey say from the cockpit. “He was _right there_ , he had a hold on our ship, I could feel it, but he let us go. Why did he let us go?”

Finn was staring at Poe and Poe stared back at his partner, feeling like the world was falling down around him. He gave no answer.

*******

In the end, they won. They suffered heavy losses, but in the end they won. In the end, Poe landed his ship on Endor and leapt out of it, desperately searching the celebrating crowd for Finn.

“POE!” he heard a familiar vice call from behind him. He took off towards it, running full tilt right into Finn’s arms. The impact probably should have hurt more than it did, but neither of them cared as they hugged each other like it was the last thing they would ever do.

“We did it, we did it,” Finn kept murmuring into Poe’s shoulder. The pilot pulled back just enough to kiss him firmly.

“I love you,” he whispered when the kiss broke, adrenaline from nearly dying on a fucking Sith planet making still nearly boiling the blood in his veins.

“I love you,” Finn said, nodding and pulling Poe back into a kiss.

Rey joined them soon after that. Poe watched with a wide smile as Finn went careening into her arms. She hugged him back with one arm, a sad smile on her face as she clutched a bundle in her other arm.

Poe hugged her briefly before inquiring as to what she was carrying.

Rey looked down at it and looked back up at the two men, eyes watering and lower lip trembling.

*******

Poe…shouldn’t have been surprised. Ben Solo hadn’t come back with Rey, so where else would he be other than dead.

As it turned out, Rey was a Skywalker, the daughter of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo and not in fact a Palpatine, Chewie informed them. She had been raised by Ben Solo up until he fell. No one was sure how she ended up abandoned on Jakku.

Poe stared down at his hands as Finn and Rey spoke with Chewie and Lando. _Everything Ben told me was true…_

Rey sniffed, wiping her eyes. “He died for me. He saved me. I wouldn’t have been able to beat Palpatine without him. I _didn’t_ survive it, he traded his life for mine…”

 _Of course he did_ , Poe thought. _That’s the kind of person Ben Solo was._

Finn found him outside later as Poe stood at the far end of the launch pad, looking up at the stars.

“You alright, Poe?” he asked, gently placing a hand on the pilot’s shoulder.

Poe turned toward him, suddenly overcome with a feeling of pure joy as he looked on his partner.

“Yeah,” he said, smiling. “Yeah, I’m alright.”

Elsewhere in the universe, Ben Solo smiled.

**El Fin**

**Author's Note:**

> And there you have it! I just couldn't resist adding some Finnpoe where there ought o have been some in canon. I was very surprised how they didn't address the survivor's guilt Poe must have had after his orders led to the destruction of most of the resistance in TLJ (though that's hardly the only thing wrong with TROS so)
> 
> Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!


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